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12 Days of Anime – [12] Anime Secret Santa Project

Anime B&B has been up and running for almost six years now, and it was only last year that I opted to join the 12 Days of Anime. There are quite a few seasonal aniblogger projects flitting around, but the two that had always caught my eye were 12 Days and Secret Santa. I kept meaning to try Secret Santa, but repeatedly missed the deadline for application. Finally, this year I stalked the date like a crazy person and actually remembered to submit.

I love receiving recommendations from others, both friends and strangers, and I particularly was curious what someone who had thoroughly gone over my watch list and looked at my blog and/or Twitter would do for suggestions. I agonized over my own recommendations for my assigned blogger, worried that he/she would absolutely hate one if not all of them. A big part of me was worried that the person assigned to me would troll with shows completely outside of my comfort zone. While I’m not adverse to trying something completely different, I do veer away from red flags like impossibly large boobs all over the promotional material.

Thankfully, what I received so perfectly fit me, it was like I was recommending items for myself:

No Game No Life

Omoide no Marnie

Tamako Love Story

I was familiar with all three when they first came out, but never got around to watching them. Now that I have a convenient reason to hunt them down, I plan on reviewing each one separately. Thank you, Secret Santa!

I’ve really enjoyed participating in the Anime Secret Santa. This is my third year, and each one I’ve ended up watching two of the shows on the list. There have been shows that I’ve had on my “plan to watch” list but with no actual plan to watch them, like The IdolM@ster, and shows that I’ve never even heard of, like Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, and this year’s show that I watched, Kobato, which was pretty delightful. In general, it’s always been a positive thing, even though the people who I recommend shows for just don’t like the shows I recommend as much as I do.

Well, looking back, it’s more that they dismiss the other shows I recommend and feels like the one they are picking is by process of elimination. One I was really surprised at was last year I recommended Girls und Panzer for a sports anime podcast, yet they watched Hyouka instead. Now, Hyouka’s good, or I wouldn’t have recommended it, but I personally think that Girls und Panzer is the best anime ever (really!). And I can’t imagine that a sports anime podcast would pass that up.

Part is that I tend to give some weird recommendations (Nazo no Kanojo X, White Album 2, Hoshizora e kakaru hashi), usually based on what I think is a good anime. And unless the person has completely trashed others in the same genre, I’ll recommend it. Of course, sometimes it can be hard to figure out something to recommend, because they have already seen all your good anime.